Can you help

This is a discussion on Can you help within the Beginner Freshwater Aquarium forums, part of the Freshwater Fish and Aquariums category; -->
Tazman and onemanswarm, I see why you're recommending a partial water change in reference to cycle issues, but the OP is battling Ich here, ...

Tazman and onemanswarm, I see why you're recommending a partial water change in reference to cycle issues, but the OP is battling Ich here, so he/she needs to be doing DAILY 50% water change with aggressive gravel vac. Every day! No exceptions! For at least 3 days after ALL signs of Ich are gone! After that, the OP can add activated carbon and continue 50% water changes daily for about three days to get rid of the medication.

Tazman and onemanswarm, I see why you're recommending a partial water change in reference to cycle issues, but the OP is battling Ich here, so he/she needs to be doing DAILY 50% water change with aggressive gravel vac. Every day! No exceptions! For at least 3 days after ALL signs of Ich are gone! After that, the OP can add activated carbon and continue 50% water changes daily for about three days to get rid of the medication.

Tazman and onemanswarm, I see why you're recommending a partial water change in reference to cycle issues, but the OP is battling Ich here, so he/she needs to be doing DAILY 50% water change with aggressive gravel vac. Every day! No exceptions! For at least 3 days after ALL signs of Ich are gone! After that, the OP can add activated carbon and continue 50% water changes daily for about three days to get rid of the medication.

I've always wondered about this. Can someone explain the point of cleaning the gravel daily?

When it is in the cyst stage (in the gravel) it divides into hundreds/thousands of new parasites.

It is absolutely impossible no mater how much you clean to get every single one of the cysts, and only a single one is needed to infect the entire water column.

I would think that medication, plus a temp of at least 86 (if the fish can take it), would be the most effective solution. At 86 the ich can no longer reproduce. If you can get it to 90 it will outright kill them, but only some warmer water fish can take that for the 4 days necessary.

I don't know, I have a planted tank, I would not want to touch the gravel if at all possible.

There are multiple reasons for doing big daily water changes with aggressive gravel vac. The first is to remove as many cilates and tomites as you can. No, this alone won't solve the problem. But it will make the whole process shorter, and therefore easier on the fish.
Another reason is to keep water parameters as perfect as possible. Fish aren't going to be able to fight off Ich as effectively if they're also dealing with poor water quality.
In the OP's case, he used a formalin/malachite green medication. This medication (as do some other medications) reacts with organic wastes in the tank to become less effective. Therefore, to maintain the full strength of the medication, he needs to be aggressively removing the organic wastes. This allows the medication to be available to battle the Ich, instead of being wasted on oxidizing the organic wastes.

There are multiple reasons for doing big daily water changes with aggressive gravel vac. The first is to remove as many cilates and tomites as you can. No, this alone won't solve the problem. But it will make the whole process shorter, and therefore easier on the fish.
Another reason is to keep water parameters as perfect as possible. Fish aren't going to be able to fight off Ich as effectively if they're also dealing with poor water quality.
In the OP's case, he used a formalin/malachite green medication. This medication (as do some other medications) reacts with organic wastes in the tank to become less effective. Therefore, to maintain the full strength of the medication, he needs to be aggressively removing the organic wastes. This allows the medication to be available to battle the Ich, instead of being wasted on oxidizing the organic wastes.

This is entirely correct but in the event, a person is unwilling to sacrifice his plants as most meds do destroy them, his alternative would be moving the fish to a hospital tank though this is much more stressful to them.

I'm actually battling ich right now ;) My wife has a 10g with just a Betta in it, brand new betta so likely sick from the store. He didn't have any spots when we bought him, but yeah.

Anyways, we have some plants (Anubias, Java Fern, Wisteria, Brazilian Pennywort) in there and based on a different thread where Byron had said he used Coppersafe in a planted tank without much in negative consequences so we are using that.

We did a 50% change, raised the temp to 86, and dosed the coppersafe. Day one went from ~30 spots to ~5 spots. Day two now has zero (visible) spots. We'll keep it for a full week, then bring the temperature back to normal. So far, no ill effects on the plants (they're still sprouting new leaves) and the betta is happily blowing bubble nests so... crossing our fingers =) The substrate is sand, so can't siphon it anyways (we'd just accomplish sucking up the sand itself).

I just posted in another thread about ich, so I'll simply copy that over. This is my take on water changes during ich treatment (I don't), but keep in mind that I am referring to treatment with CopperSafe and raising temperature. I never use malachite green and other treatments because CS works for me with minimal stress to fish.

I've never vacuumed the substrate for this purpose, and you are the first person I've read who mentioned this aspect. While vacuuming the substrate would/could presumably remove some of the cilates, and changing water might remove some of the free-swimming tomites--both practices will also diminish the strength of medication in the aquarium and this could allow some of the ich to slip through and attach to a host fish. Adding more medication to deal with the water removed is possible, and with a medication like CopperSafe might be OK because it is not as potent as other copper-based meds (which is why it is "safer" on sensitive fish). But with a stronger med, I would think this very risky. Elevated levels of copper can kill plants, fish and bacteria. I prefer to have a better idea of how much copper I'm adding. I have for instance noticed plants being affected by some other copper medications when used just as recommended; this has never occurred with Coppersafe, provided I also discontinue fertilization--the two together does affect plants, which I assume is the elevated copper level. So my thinking here is that one has to be careful, and the best action would seem to be not changing water to maintain an effective but not detrimental level of copper. Treatment for a week or two weeks at most should deal with the ich, and shortening this by even a couple days is not worth the possible risk in my view.

Oh yes, I'm not familiar with CopperSafe. I was just asking Byron in the other thread about his experiences with it, and he doesn't gravel vac (he never does, ich or not, because he's heavily planted) or change water when using it. CopperSafe and herbal remedies are next on my list to study.